1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a scene change detector for automatically detecting a scene change of a moving picture reproduced by a series of frames of pictures, and more particularly to a scene change detector utilized in an interframe predictive coding apparatus in which the moving picture is efficiently encoded.
2. Description of the Related Art
A scene change detector in which a scene change of a moving picture is automatically detected has been utilized in a moving picture signal coding apparatus and an editing apparatus. A moving picture reproduced by decoding a series of frames of picture encoded is changed while time is elapsed, and a scene change of the moving picture occurring in a current frame is defined as a large difference between a preceding frame and the current frame displayed at separated times. Also, activity is generally defined as the complexity of a frame of picture. Specifically, the activity is quantitatively defined as the sum of absolute values of digital picture signals indicating a frame of picture, in this specification. That is, the digital picture signals are filtered to obtain output data according to a prescribed filtering process, and absolute values of the output data are calculated. Therefore, the activity is defined as the sum of the absolute values of the output data.